


Undo What Time Has Done

by RhayFalkCross



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Sadstuck, Songfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-22
Updated: 2012-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-29 22:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/325025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhayFalkCross/pseuds/RhayFalkCross
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifteen years ago John Egbert died in a car crash.<br/>This is not his story.<br/>This is the story of Dave Strider, and his journey to turn back time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Undo What Time Has Done

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off a concept album by a band that will currently remain un-named because I don't want to spoil the ending. If you recognize it, please don't ruin anything for other readers.
> 
> One day I will stop writing shitty John/Dave fics.
> 
> Today is not that day.

            Fifteen years.

Fifteen years of waking up to a cold space in the bed beside you. Of dreams haunted by images of you clutching at his faded body, begging him to come back. It was a fucked up sort of irony that promised that the man who had loved the breeze would never breathe again.

It had taken you fifteen goddamn years to finish this machine. Years spent in an endless cycle of research, experimentation, and failure until finally, you thought you had it right. In a strange way it made sense that you had started out with your old turntables; they were the first piece of technology that you had become familiar with and John had loved them. Now, when you looked at the setup you almost didn’t recognize it through all the wires pooled around its base and the thick lead box of uranium you had installed at its center.

You had already written letters to Rose and Jade, just in case something went wrong and things blew up in your face, either figuratively or literally. They had tried to dissuade you from this plan, tried to tell you that John wouldn’t have wanted this. But he wasn’t here to say what he would have wanted, was he? That was the whole fucking problem.

They didn’t understand, anyway. They hadn’t been the ones to pick up the phone and hear that too-calm voice say, “There’s been an accident.” They hadn’t rushed to the hospital to see John lying broken on a metal bed, hadn’t screamed and struggled to get to him as the nurses held them back.  Neither of them knew what it was like to be told by a doctor with a pitying expression that “We did everything we could, but your partner was just too far gone. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

You had gone numb, ignoring the doctors and the nurses to stand by John’s bed. If you didn’t look at the gaping wound in his chest, he could almost be sleeping. The blue eyes you loved so much were hidden behind closed lids; his face looked relaxed and peaceful. You took his hand and squeezed, willing him to squeeze back, but it never happened. Instead, the skin slowly grew colder against yours.

Two weeks later, you buried John Egbert under the willow tree outside the house you bought together. It was a perfect afternoon in the middle of May; not a cloud in the sky, the kind of day that he loved. After everyone left you just stood in the yard, staring at the tombstone, and as the sun set you made a promise.

“I’ll fix this.”

And here you are, standing over the tables with your fingers resting lightly on the two record-like controls. You set them spinning, closing your eyes and hoping for the best as the mechanical humming starts. The goal is to keep the speed low and your rhythm steady, so that when the time comes you can stop on the scratch that marks the day of John’s death.

The humming grows, now a roar that drowns out everything else. The floor is starting to shake beneath your feet, and you struggle to plant them, but things are going to shit. Everything was going white, then dark, then white again, and you were losing your grip on consciousness. With a wordless cry, you fall, hands jerking across the controls on your way down. Instinctively, you reach out and grab the edge of the tables and you feel yourself being pulled along.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, everything stopped. You were laying face down on the damp earth, but even without looking you knew something had gone terribly wrong. The earth smelt different, like something organic still in the process of rotting. The air was heavy and humid, and as you pushed yourself up off the ground a stream of curses fell from your lips.

This was not the right time. This wasn’t even the right millennia. The forest around you was straight up Jurassic Park shit, thick and lush and completely unfamiliar. But you don’t have time to explore; your first priority is the machine.

To your relief, it seems fine. You prepare to start it up again, get it right this time, when an earsplitting shriek sounds from nearby. Fortunately, your reflexes are as good as they were when you were twenty, and you spin just in time to dodge the enormous creature swooping down on you. There’s another shriek and another huge figure, and without stopping to get a better look you sprint into the cover of the trees.

You can hear the flapping of wings coming from behind you, and you speed up, eyes scanning the undergrowth for any sign of shelter, barely managing to keep your cool. You spot a cave to your left and veer towards it, but you can tell that the beasts are getting close. You dive the last few yards and skid to safety, finally taking the opportunity to assess what you’re up against. What you see makes your heart sink.

Pterodactyls, three of them, wheeling in circles just outside the entrance. They’re so much bigger than the skeletons you’d seen in the museum as a child. Each of them with a wingspan at least as large as you were tall and wicked, beaklike jaws made for tearing flesh.

You lean against the wall of the cave, breathing deeply, trying to get your bearings and formulate a plan. Maybe they’ll go away, then you can make a break for the machine and get the fuck out of dodge. You’re not exactly a large meal; they have to have better options. Scooting further back into the cave, you pull your knees to your chest, privately shocked at how quickly your victory turned to shit.

You check the entrance every few hours, hoping each time that the predators will be gone, but it’s like they know you’ve got nowhere to go. They’re trying to wait you out, and it’s made all the worse because you know they’re right. You’ll have to leave eventually, at the very least to stave off starvation.

“Fuck” you whisper, curling your knees to your chest and wrapping your arms around them. The sun was starting to set and the temperature was rapidly dropping. This was not the heroic rescue you had envisioned when you’d woken up that morning, you hadn’t exactly packed for a long journey, either.

It begins to dawn on you that you could very well die here, eaten alive by overly large bird assholes or slowly freezing to death if it gets any colder. The thought leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, how typical it would be of you to fail in such a spectacular manner. You stare at the cave wall, trying to ignore the slow build of shivering but it’s becoming increasingly difficult.

You pick up a rock off the cave floor, intending to distract yourself, maybe make a prehistoric Sweet Bro comic that you can watch archeologists shit bricks over in the future. Instead you find yourself carving ten familiar letters into the stone. John Egbert. It takes an indecent amount of time, but you keep at it, reminding yourself with every chip of the slate why you’re here.

Only after you’re completely finished do you realize how utterly pointless it was. Maybe not in one hundred years, maybe not in a thousand, but eventually these letters will be worn away. Glaciers or sand or a river, some form of erosion will smooth them into the wall and it will be like they were never there. Like you were never there.

“God _damn_ it,” you’re screaming at nothing and everything at the same time, so loud that it’s tearing at your throat. You’re scared, not for yourself and the possibility of your own death, but for him and the chance that he might lay in that cold grave forever.

Suddenly, you didn’t care about the pterodactyls swarming just outside, or the fact that it was pitch dark, you’re running. Sprinting. Dodging through the dark forms of the trees as they rushed towards you. You needed to get back to the machine, and neither hell nor high water was going to stop you. You don’t know if it was the cover of night, or just sheer dumb luck, but you made it. You spun the tables, not even caring when it took you as long as it wasn’t then. The humming began and you closed your eyes, hanging on tight _._


End file.
